A joyful evening of Jazz

Several people who don’t usually come to Music Society concerts (and a lot who do) had a great time on Saturday 17th March with the Nova Scotia Jazz Band. This engaging quartet played a wide variety of classic numbers dating from the New Orleans age, and stunned the audience with their technical virtuosity. Mike Daly plays the cornet with a fluency and sweetness of tone that enchanted everyone, and his soaring improvisations touched on the far extremes of invention while remaining completely coherent. Duncan Findlay, on banjo and guitar, displayed astonishing virtuosity, and changed the whole quality of the ensemble according to which instrument he was playing. Not surprisingly, he is one of the most sought after session guitar and banjo players in Scotland. John Burgess, too, moved from one instrument to another, stunningly fluent on clarinet and bringing a smoky, poetic quality to his brilliant solos on tenor sax. The power-house of the group was Ken MacDonald on string bass. Working without a drummer, the rhythm was always perfectly secure, and Ken’s bass solos had marvellous inventiveness. Together, the super-talented four re-created the hey-day of such classic figures as Muggsy Spanier, Bix Beiderbecke, Eddie Condon and Alex Welsh, and by the end, everyone was cheering. A great evening, and a great band.